


Who by Fire

by diopan



Category: Berserk
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diopan/pseuds/diopan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>collection of au stuff & prompts</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gifts for boot heels to crush

The worst nightmares came about on their own. He would shake himself awake, frantically looking for the creature which caused his mind to become so cruel only to find there never was one. It was clear day and the dreams rose from within, on the few occasions he managed to fall asleep, at least partially forced to, beaten by his endless exhaustion.

A field under the stars where Griffith lay beside him, a smile on an innocent face, and through the air the knowledge that the smiles were for him, a delicate whisper like the wind that cooled his hot and tired body. In the distance, Casca watched in her anger and her silence, her black eyes like swords, piercing him in places he was sure had never existed. “I think she’s upset at you,” Griffith looked him in the eye, “at us,” and he knew. Yes, she hated him, she hated him with a sound mind and a sound voice and a sound heart and he resented her very existence with a smile: she was critical and hurtful and angry for no good reason, and she was of sound mind and sound voice and a sound heart. A delicate hand that was too good at wielding swords and leading ways would reach out for his own calloused hand under the stars and he would shake himself awake, cold sweat running down the back of a neck where the hand would’ve been posed, and he frantically looked for the creature that wasn’t there yet.


	2. soiled hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the same universe as ricochet and filleann

There was nothing there she didn’t like.  
Nothing about the days in which, over breakfast shared in bed, her husband said his best friend was coming for dinner, that she didn’t enjoy.  
Their friendship filled the large, echoing spaces of home as they sat at the large dining room table she inherited from her grandmother and there was no denying it was pleasant and warm. She’d grown to love the company provided by the other man; grown to love the retelling of the story on the First Meeting; to love the inconsistencies every retelling gave light to; and to love the best friend’s girlfriend.

Even the thought of it made her chuckle: what a sorry picture she painted and yet she wasn’t worthy of pity, just a secluded wealthy girl who had no one to love her and, worst of all, no one to give her love to except one person, years ago, who had been her friend for a handshake. She was fourteen, bored, and aimlessly walking around a colourful, noisy party her mother was hosting. A woman wore her hair up, her dress like a neck, long and soft, and she brought along her son, a shy, elegant boy who held out his hand. As she took it, Charlotte could see he cared for nothing, loved no one: he was too cynical, the world was too terrible, it was all too painful. But she could also see him talking during winter morning walks with her, explaining poetry and rock and roll and the reasons why everything was wrong now even if it had been right once, when they were unborn. And she could see herself drinking coffee and nodding her head in agreement after leaving the theatre where Ingmar Bergman’s films were playing—Bergman was poetry—and she felt adult, she felt a friend. The boy let go of her hand and it was over. She resumed her aimless wandering to be able, later, to fall asleep with half a smile.  
Years later he met her likewise friendless husband and after he spoke for the first time, she was suddenly happy and whole and uninterested in winter or walks or coffee.

But Casca came into her house like a not so elegant boy—she enjoyed thinking it was that mistake on her part which helped them bond—who offered to carry the tray with fresh made coffee into the dining room. There was something to it because Casca found Bergman too boring and tiring, and the day her husband suggested they both go to the cinema whilst he and his best friend went hiking, with a smile Charlotte realised she did too.

Silence filled pauses would come between her and Casca whenever her friend—she savoured the words—looked at the two men speak with each other, and she had grown to love that as well. She learned to love looking at them herself after feeling the silence, and becoming delicate and transparent like the curtains the wind blew into roman women, almost invisible. She had grown to love gazes she didn’t understand which made Casca lower her head and made herself feel as if she were somewhere else, faraway.  
There was nothing about the two she didn’t like.  
Some nights with no pattern to them, she woke to a room entirely too large, smaller than the one she grew up in, but larger all the same. Under the covers her hand would reach for her husband’s which was always, invariably present, same as the weight on her chest and the rush beating of her heart, as if she knew something she didn’t know. And there was nothing for her there.  
Nothing she didn’t like.


	3. ricochet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> same universe as filleann and soiled hands

there’s a crack in everything  
that’s how the light gets in

Heavy mist surrounded the pier, made it hard to see anything farther than a couple of metres. The sudden appearance of seagulls startled him slightly and he threw back his head, shook off all images, escaping the eyes on people’s faces or perhaps the seagulls.

“Do you think,” he said after the cries had died down and the sky gave the first signs of sunset, “there’s such a thing as fate?”

The question stayed in the air. It was uninvited: the silence which preceded it had come from a talk of tree names and birds, the things that felt safe, and while nothing was safe with them—nothing was removed enough—trees were at least solid, permanently rooted and firm, purposeful. Guts paused as if to collect his thoughts, or his breath, or to ponder over the question, but there really was nothing to ponder.

“No.”  
“Do you think people make their own fate then?”

This time, the tall man nodded and slowly faced away from Griffith, leaned his elbows on the large bannister and stared out into the ocean below their feet while it occured to him that inside the mist no one else could see them, they might as well be invisible.

“Do you think I make my own fate?”

Guts turned back to Griffith. There was anger, soft and friendly and barely there, in his gaze; shocked annoyance, light impatience.

“What’s with this all of a sudden?”  
“Everything has been easy for me. It has all fallen into place perfectly.”

The mist invited intimacy, secrecy. Guts wasn’t cold—sweat from the exercise still clung the shirt to his back, shone on his forehead—but he shivered: someone stepping on your grave, on the place you’ll lay before your time; old fool’s tales.

“I don’t believe everything’s been easy for you.”

The voice was crisp, almost cutting, as if it wished to say nothing more was there to discuss, nothing more to say. It has not been easy, that’s it.

Inside the mist, it was almost just a voice, floating with the cries of the seagulls and the gentle murmur of the waves against breakwaters; property of no one, of everyone, and Griffith wanted nothing more than to trust. And yet—and yet it was on their faces, eyes staring back at him, constant reminders of everything he didn’t deserve, everything he hadn’t earned. Not by birth right, at least. That’s what mattered, because in this world, in their world—“the best, the brightest, the beautiful”—it was all laid down, atavic, permanent. The contrast, of course, the other side were a different set of faces—they bore the same eyes—denouncing him: you’ve climbed too high, too soon, too easily. Everything comes easy to you. A crack divided the two groups, a secret pathway edged between two crags through which he’d slipped once and many times that had left scars on his body marking him as one who didn’t belong.

Guts had scars too, he paused to remember. Griffith had seen them. He’d admired the tanned broad back and wondered where he’d gotten them, and what could have caused them, and why, and a need to know had moved him much more than anything had in years. But he’d remained silent, and when Guts turned to him he’d pretended not to have noticed.

“But then why was I so lucky? Why not anyone else?”

Silence had already fallen around them, like the sun had sinked and the mist had thickened, and the voice, Griffith’s voice, took Guts by surprise. He had been too busy reminding himself this invisibility wasn’t permanent, this secrecy wasn’t to last, reminding himself he shouldn’t feel as if they’d been suspended in time, plucked away from everything, reminding himself he shouldn’t wish for it, either.

“Because you’re the only one who can,” the reason came to him effortlessly, eternal knowledge since birth. “If it’s you. Surely you can do everything. Anything,” he regretted saying almost immediately. Childish and naïve; true, yes, he was being honest and he told himself it was the mist, and the darkness, and not being able to see makes you speak more clearly; old fool’s wisdom.

Griffith chuckled. Maybe it meant fate too, maybe that’s where his thoughts lay, even if he chose not to believe. Maybe he was fated to be able, to be the only one who can. He wanted to believe he wasn’t choosing this—the pier and the mist and the secrecy of their talk, the intimacy of their long walks together while his wife and his girlfriend were elsewhere, somewhere far away—because it was harder, because it presented a challenge he wished—wanted, sometimes, not very often, needed—to overcome.

“I have scars,” he started. Guts opened his mouth and then closed it again. “I have cracks, everything does. Everything’s cracked in some way and I’ve seen them and slipped through them,” sleeping in dark alleyways, in closed off buildings history students dreamt of, falling, having slipped, through floorboards too old, too rotten to hold any weight much less his and his books; slipping in on lectures, sitting near the door, wrong in the belief that no one would notice; offered a glass of whiskey, a cracked heavy glass with the promise of future and knowledge and dreams, all of those cracked in their own particular ways as well. “Sometimes I’ve taken a lever to the cracks and opened everything up myself, sometimes I’ve made them wider, but—” flowers and ribbons and a funeral where the eyes started staring and everyone must’ve known; gripping his own shoulders with too much strength and too little remorse, no care, no feeling, and then a smile; she opened a book and walked towards him, flowers and ribbons, “but the cracks were already there, I didn’t make them.”

Guts let go of the bannister he’d started gripping for support, stability. His hands had already warmed the cool metal, yet he still felt like shivering. During all his motions—letting go, taking a step back, approaching—he kept his eyes on the other man, large brown eyes under a furrowed brow.

“You can see the cracks, probably nobody else can, and you chose them.”

He patted Griffith’s back. There was a smile on his lips, Griffith could only catch a glimpse of it with the corner of his eye.

“We should get going,” Guts said, again facing away from Griffith, away from the sea this time, “it’s late.”

The eyes were gone, not replaced—that would be cheap—they had disappeared and all that remained was the voice, the salty air of the sea, and the mist drawing barriers around him, the impenetrable fortress he had once longed for.


	4. filleann

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> same universe as ricochet and soiled hands  
> for hika

is a dream a lie if it don’t come true  
or is it something worse?

From inside the dream Guts can hear noise. He grunts, wakes and gets up steadily, ready to confront the idiot who thought it a good idea to steal from someone who has nothing in the middle of the day. He almost feels pity for the bastard, imagines him shaking with anger and desperation at the uselessness of his effort. But instead he finds Griffith standing in his three piece suit—you mean business—in the middle of the kitchen, humming as he picks up pieces of broken dish. It’s a while before Guts can remember he gave this man spare keys, and before he can wonder why he ever thought to do so when he spots a tray with steaming coffee and toast and scrambled eggs. Griffith doesn’t notice him until after Guts is aware that the flat is now immaculate—he can only remember it being this clean when he first moved into the place—except for the broken dish at Griffith’s feet. It must’ve been the sound of ceramic against tile that woke him, he realises, and has to keep himself from asking “Why would you do all this for me?” for a second, before he feels his ears burning up and turns away from the dumb smile that has finally noticed him: open and inviting and baffling. The ground gives in just a little—same as when the ancient elevator of the building drops a notch before arriving on his floor—when Guts, again, wonders why would he, why would Griffith, do anything for him. His ears itch and he’s prepared to say he’s not, in fact, flustered, or moved, or red, just tired and sleepy and hungry.

"Good morning!"

"You broke a plate."

"It slipped," Griffith doesn’t miss a beat and Guts wonders whether he rehearsed the excuse beforehand. "I made breakfast for you," his smile is wide again, so inviting that Guts’ hand instinctively reaches for his neck to rub because he’s not flustered, and his tone won’t betray him once he says:

"It’s not morning."

"I know." Griffith’s smile says he knows more than the time of day.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Guts wants to ask, but it’s useless. He simply looks away. It’s Thursday, the middle of the day, and he’s tired—graveyard shifts are killing him, he thinks, like the songs one of his coworkers is always singing off key—and there’s things to do, but if he asks there’ll be no reply, there never is. And he remembers Griffith repeating himself; always the same stories, because Griffith knows Guts won’t memorise them, he knows Guts will forget; and Guts remembers small pieces of realisations that come to him on early mornings, when he’s opening the door to his flat, calling Casca to let her know he’s made it home alright; small pieces of knowledge that tell him perhaps those stories are Griffith’s way of treasuring every moment, his way of showing that Guts is not alone in nervously thinking that one day there will be nothing between them, not even distance.

"Shouldn’t you still be in bed?" Griffith echoes. (Damn him, Guts bites his lower lip.) "So I can carry your breakfast to you?"

"You woke me up."

"Oh did I?" For the first time since Guts stood just at the border where tiled floor signals the beginning of the kitchen—the only marking to separate it from the rest of the apartment—Griffith moves towards him and for the first time in what seemed like too long a time, Guts thinks that he does look like he belongs here, in his apartment.

Two hands cup the outlines of his face, thumbs softly brushing over dry skin along with words whispered as loudly as they can be: ”I’ll take you back to bed, make right what I did wrong?”

Before completely closing the distance, Griffith lets something drop in his tone, in the way he stares—Guts can see it, he feels it, and it happens so rarely that he always remembers because sometimes it’s haunting—and Guts thinks it’s haunting now, so he puts his arms around Griffith—he doesn’t need to pretend his ears aren’t burning when he can feel Griffith’s body move each time he breathes, for a while—and leans in for a kiss, a little off mark, catching the upper corners of Griffith’s lips, feeling Griffith’s breath make a deep sound, he can hear and almost touch it. (There’s nothing between them now.)

All of a sudden, like noise yanking someone out of a dream, Guts lets go and looks down at his bare feet, his big toe with the dark toenail—a box fell on it two or three weeks ago—and he remembers his ears were itching, his words threatening to come out in stutters.

Griffith laughs after what seems like forever—Guts has memorised every shade of dark purple on his nail—so loud it makes Guts bite his lips again and ask “What?” But there’s stuttering in his tone (If words were coloured, this would be a pale red, afraid and nervous and embarrassed, but only the word.) Griffith laughs even louder, and Guts watches him cover his mouth, trying not to giggle.

"W-why are you doing all this? Breakfast, and cleaning, and—"

He tries so hard to sound collected, as if he wished to know simply out of curiosity, it’s almost believable. In between bouts of chuckles Griffith explains, because he wants to. That’s it. He shrugs, and grins, and says “Because I wanted to,” and it sends shivers down Guts’ spine—it’s the middle of the day, the middle of spring—and he needs to take a moment or two before he can finally say (stutter) he’ll go back to bed to wait for his breakfast.


	5. a fistful of idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> western au yeehaw  
> for hika

His rifle pointed at the blonde boy they called The Clown, but his attention was fixed on the leader of the band who, surrounded by his men, sat atop a saddle placed by the fire where rusty kettles steamed and a can of beans stood like a monolyth of triumph. The long haired man wore a smile the others hang onto as if it were a jewel, a brick of gold, or a handful of dollars but somehow more valuable, perhaps a revolver with a silver grip engraved by a girl with green eyes that had once given her love to the owner.

He didn’t look like he could lead the deadliest, most successful band of thieves in all the West. Yet he did, and the months Guts had spent living amongst the colourful pack of robbers had taught him Griffith was in fact better at it than the legends and stories featured in dime novels could ever imagine. He blamed this and nothing else—it was the only cause, he told himself once and again—for his hesitation.

His initial intentions of spending two or three weeks with them, finding Griffith’s weaknesses, his openings, then victoriously departing with a cuffed pretty boy, a souvenir for Mediatierra’s county sheriff, present in his mind every time his finger stroked the trigger in the night while thieves slept. It was the joker in his royal flush, the card that did not fit but allowed him to counter what were obvious lies, that the dreams which visited at night in this place were pleasant and gave him rest.

It would be so very easy to stay. As easy as it had been to join, almost warmly welcomed after a very convenient coincidence allowed him to help them save Pippin from hanging.   
A shot fired from his rifle called the authorities’ attention to him and once he had it a smirk flashed on his face. He tipped his hat and buried his spurs on the horse’s sides, fleeing to allow the thieves time.

Unlike Griffith’s smooth skin, his ragged scarred face showed years filled with robbery, hunger and death. Men used to betting on the bigger, healthiest dog decided he must’ve been the important one, the one they wished to stop. Later, those men, not one of them a bounty hunter, bid goodbye to their prey like they did the money they put on the dog, and Guts was able to dismount for rest under a tree by a creek he made sure the band of thieves frequented. 

He needn’t wait long until The Girl and Corkus came before him with Griffith’s orders: he was to be escorted to where their leader was. “Arrogant,” he thought, then said while lowering his hat to cover his eyes, ready for his siesta: “I don’t like being told what to do. Tell your pretty boy if he wants to see me, he can come see me himself.” It was mere trickery, power play. He knew how these things went and what to expect, hence his leaning back on the tree that gave him shade, crossing his arms and knocking off his boots. But—he would later learn—nothing ever went as expected with Griffith, there was no way of knowing what he thought or what games—if any—he was playing or even which ones he excelled at.

Soft clopping of only one animal called his attention and he lifted his hat an inch or two to find a white horse walking slowly into his field of vision: a white horse carrying man too pretty to be a thief feared by thieves and murderers all over the region.

“You helped us rescue Pippin,” the man announced as he dismounted, placing himself in front of Guts. He stood, forcing Guts to look up to him, watch his figure cut out against the sky, face staring down at the scarred man like statues of angels in mexican churches, their empty gazes dripping with arrogance and disdain and with tenderness and melancholy. There was nothing to reply, the man was stating the obvious, and so he did not say a word, mulling over how both irritating and fascinating it all was becoming.

“I want you to join us,” it was more an order than a request: Griffith was certain the answer would be yes, and it was going to be, that was the point, but it took all of Guts’ strength, and a reminder of how much money this man’s head was worth, not to abandon the idea altogether.

“Don’t you wanna know why I helped ya?”

“You wish to join us,” Griffith said.

Such confidence, so sure. Maybe he knew. Guts worried briefly, but there was really nothing to worry about, death was always a welcome risk.

“Ya think so?”

“Yes. I watched you watch us,” he was smiling now, extending his hand out to Guts for him to take, “Come,” and once he did, once Guts accepted what was being offered, the hands were dealt, there was no going back.

His finger traced the form of the trigger one, two, three times. The steel was no longer cold because of the prolonged contact with skin, he noticed just as he watched The Girl leave her place at Griffith’s side, carrying her saddle with her. This provided good opportunity, it made everything so much easier because she was the wild card and was voluntarily withdrawing this round. He’d be able to get the jack and the king even if he had been in a losing streak ever since he gambled his own life and Griffith gave it back to him.

Both of them were wet with rain, riverwater and their own sweat; their clothes clinged to their bodies—flannel shirts and underpants so itchy he thought he was losing his mind—and Griffith was laughing, head and body tilted backwards. He was joyful. And he was vulnerable, open. There was no one but them down there and everywhere Guts looked only cliffs and rock and sky winding like a river met his gaze.

When questioned, Griffith simply explained life would mean very little if he let a comrade die. It was a whole second before Guts caught himself nodding in agreement and shook his head and his thoughts, but a second was all he needed.

Later that week when it struck him that Griffith did not mean Guts’ life would mean very little if he let a comrade die but his own, he needed to remember bounty hunters were all liars, they ought to be, and even if those were his own thoughts they were cruel lies born out of hopeful resignation.

His index finger carressed the trigger once more. He had it all planned, once The Clown hit the ground he would already be holding a knife to Griffith’s neck—he shivered from the cold—the others too busy trying to make out what was happening to stop him. He would threaten to end their leader’s life if they interfered, and then he would leave, carrying the man with him to hand him in for money and bitter aftertaste.

He hadn’t considered Griffith’s reaction—it had been impossible for him to anticipate it—but there was some base instinct that told him the thief would not put up a fight, that he would go with Guts almost willingly. He shivered once more even though he was sure the air was hotter than it should’ve been for May. The finger’s caress became a grip and in an instant it would become a pull and everything would be over. It would be so very easy to stay. But Guts was a bounty hunter, it was the life he knew, the life he had grown used to knowing, and it was an even easier one where death was a welcome risk and there was no one whose life felt precious to him.

“You gonna hurt somebody like that,” a voice from behind him said while a hand lowered the barrel of his weapon and he looked up to meet the gaze a woman, her face stern, almost angry, but her voice soft and soothing. As he put down the weapon two eyes fixed themselves on his from a distance, like the eyes of a bird of prey, and startled him, but then the same eyes offered a sweet, inviting smile. With a frown and nodding, he secured the rifle once more, laid it on the ground, and promised himself that tomorrow, tomorrow he definitely would, when he wasn’t so hungry and tired and cold.


	6. the enormity of what you have lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> character death in this one

The floor felt cold and hard against knees and his hands had touched its surface a couple of times finding it rugged and desolate; he didn’t like the place. He felt the weight of his coat on his shoulders, the weight of someone else’s gaze on his back, but his eyes were open and distressed saying _no_ over and over, repeating like a mantra and a curse. How long had he been there? An hour, maybe two? Sweet smiles came to his face once or twice because he saw movement—  
 _He’ll wake up now, he’ll be—he said… no, mine! I’m the only one who can choose where, when, and… why…_  
 _Do not touch him_ , Griffith whispered loudly without looking at the hand he knew was trying to touch the motionless body next to him. _He doesn’t like that._ Griffith himself hadn’t dared touch his body, _my body_ , long fingers tracing its form just above it, afraid to invite reality once his fingers could feel heat leaving the man he once—  
 _And what for? What did you die for?_ he yelled expecting an answer, wishing anger to move him awake, _what good does it do you to have… died? You couldn’t wait to get away, is that it? Did you wish… to leave me this badly?_  
His mind had no sound, no thoughts, even if he’d tried to form them, no form came to him, and it was too much like being out of breath, eardrums ready to burst after a cannonball had gone off too close to them, movements slowed down as if walking on quicksand, or drowning in the blood dripping from his sides, the red sea. How long had he been there? An hour, maybe less?  
 _Why did you let me win you one more time if you were going to—_  
The scars on Guts’ shoulder, marking the second time Griffith won him, would rot away with the rest of him but Griffith still didn’t dare touch what was rightfully his to touch. He wouldn’t like that, or worse, he wouldn’t mind, which would tell Griffith finally that it was true: Guts couldn’t mind anymore.  
Mouths and hands and feet moved around him but he was blind to sounds and deaf to colour and no, over and over, like noise in the background that wouldn’t stop, the clamour of the battlefield, _no_ piercing the air like he wished his voice would, drowning in blood and water and the rugged, cold, hard surface his knees were trying to blend in with.  
“What—what should we do?” Casca asked.  
“I’m sorry. I don’t really know,” Judeau spoke softly. Not that it mattered. Griffith couldn’t hear them anyway, he couldn’t talk. They tried to pry the leader of the Band of Hawks away from the corpse of the raider to no avail.  
The glasses of water left earlier were now half empty yet the food was still untouched, same as the body since he was shot down, four nights ago.


	7. there's gotta be a record of you somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on [this drawing](http://stonergriffith.tumblr.com/post/102932480872/griffith-taking-selfies-to-send-to-guts-that-guts) and an idea from hika

They’re both drifters. They inhabit the spaces in between, the interregnum, half way across the mist-covered mountains and the valleys of the lowlands. He thinks. He also thinks one day they’ll return to their own different worlds, even though there’s just the one, and maybe they’ll make war on each other. But for now, it’s okay. It’s okay that Guts thinks having a phone is useless. It’s okay that he thinks there’s nothing that could possibly be so urgent that it would require him to be available every single moment of the day. Never mind that Griffith might need to urgently—it cannot wait—talk about the documentary on bird hunting he watched at the midnight showing during the film festival and Guts is out somewhere and cannot be reached. It’s okay because they’re both drifters and sometimes, most of the times, Griffith forgets he wishes for the spaces outside the in between.

A cold morning in October marks the time they stop being drifters. The time they start drifting out of the in between. He thinks. He’s sitting in one of those unbelievably uncomfortable metal chairs, the round short ones, wrapped in his red muffler and playing idly with his phone, when Guts arrives, late, and sits in a chair that looks to be too small for him, grinning in a childish way that only ellicits Griffith to think, for the millionth time, how incredibly cute he is.

\- Here, write down my number, — he says, a stutter almost seamlessly hidden, while he slides over a piece of paper with a number on it. (Griffith thinks immediately of the first time they met and he lets his muffler loose).  
\- What’s this?  
\- M’phone number. Haven’t memorised it yet. It’s, well, is new. Got it at work.  
He won’t admit it, but he lets out a squeal of joy, and adds Guts to his contact book immediately (he makes sure to add (҂⌣̀_⌣́) because it reminds him of Guts) and snaps a picture of him right then to use as the contact photo. Surprise and confusion and embarrassment all over his face, now forever captured in Griffith’s phone, to stare at whenever he wants.  
\- Okay, wait, — he says and scoots his chair closer to Guts, who’s already protesting. For two seconds Griffith has the pleasure of staring at Guts on the screen of his phone looking uncomfortable and vaguely angry next to his own smile that seems to keep growing.  
\- Alright, I’ll send you the picture.  
\- W-what, n-no.  
\- It says here you don’t have whatsapp, you want me to download it for you?  
\- What?  
\- Whatsapp.  
\- What?  
Of course he wouldn’t know. It’s endearing, too. So Griffith holds out his hand to be handed the phone, show Guts the world he’s missing.

It’s the first time they stop being drifters. Guts has gotten a good job, they’ve given him a phone which means more responsabilities, which probably means better pay, which also probably means fewer hours, Griffith hopes. And Griffith’s enrolled in university and he’s sure he can get done with it faster than anyone else, make up for lost time, and start reaching for what’s out there, not in the interregnum. Even if it’s just sitting there with him. Or not.

It’s also the first time Griffith thinks an old phone isn’t bothersome, if he’s being honest. It’s not so bad. It’s okay. It’s okay not being able to send Guts a picture of the seagull eating a dove that he walked by on the street immediately as he passed by it. And it’s definitely okay not being able to send Guts pictures of his hair, which happened to be particularly on point that one morning, while he’s riding the elevator and happened to look at his reflection. He can do this later, when they talk, when they meet up, when they’re memories. And later he can wonder why he’s so interested in keeping memories of anything, on looking back when he’s always been looking forward. Wonder why he feels there’s something he shouldn’t let slip.

Casca walks with him during break, at the beginning of March, when he’s out to get his coffee, and starts talking about some app she read about—she makes sure it’s vague, so Griffith can’t pinpoint what it is she was looking for when she found that particular article, but Griffith knows. She finishes it off by showing Griffith the app on her phone. Aquamarine background while it loads. Casca punching him lightly on the shoulder, too much like a tantrum, when he lifts an eyebrow mutely at the picture of her and that girl she once introduced to Griffith when it finally loads. She closes it, of course, and then goes on.  
\- Anyway, that was it.  
\- What was it called?  
\- Between. It’s not good for anything except like, private texting, and leaving notes. And like putting pictures and important dates. It’s corny, and dumb. I’m not gonna use it.  
\- I can see that.  
\- It’s more your style, huh?

He sips his coffee and she ends up with an expression halfway cross a pout and a chuckle and Griffith once again thinks about the space between mountains and lowlands. In class—he already knows all this from reading books at the public library during his free time, from not reading them the times he managed to get Guts to come with him, from lying on his stomach on top of Guts the few times they both had enough time (never enough) to exist in the same world for once, telling him about all this—in class, he downloads the app and plays around with it and sends an invite to « Guts (҂⌣̀_⌣́) » that he knows will be lost in the space and time that separates his phone from Guts’.

It’s not the first time Griffith thinks an old phone isn’t bothersome, if he’s being honest. There used to be no phone at all. There’s this thing, he realises after fiddling around with the app for a bit, called « Moments » where he can leave notes that Guts can answer. He leaves a bunch of them, mostly complaints about the class, and a picture of himself being bored, and a picture of his coffee, and then a picture of him in front of Casca who’s trying to get him to stop making a fuss, all captioned with precisely what they are, and he giggles thinking Guts will think it’s stupid, if he ever sees it, which he won’t. But it’s not long before he realises it’s too much like the first time they met.

Too much like sitting in a crowded, noisy bar, right next to the speakers blaring out what passed for punk those days, trying to understand whatever it was that Judau wanted to say when he brought over the tall man and sat him down. Too much like, after trying too hard to speak, to be heard, to hear, taking out a piece of paper and writing down « It’s too loud. I’m Griffith. Who are you? » and watching the man’s hands shakily write out a reply. Too much like doing this back and forth, forgetting there were ever other people with him, or what he was doing there at all, watching his hands shake when writing (is he embarrassed? is he shy?). Too much like that initial excitement that lasted months. Too much like realising Guts was trying to put up a wall, to push him away for reasons he didn’t know back then, because Griffith was too forceful even writing down in a piece of paper with a pen covered in baby cat cartoons.

He keeps the papers they used then in a box in his closet and he knows he’ll throw it out one day. He hasn’t yet because when he found them by accident, though Guts told him it was stupid and he should throw those away immediately, he seemed genuinely moved—and surprised and embarrassed—that Griffith had actually kept them, for so long, too. As if he didn’t believe there was anything on those papers worth remembering. (Ah, maybe that was it? The thing that was slipping?) It took him a while before he realised maybe he should tell Guts those things he kept hidden. The papers, yes, but everything else too. That he remembered, for one. That he remembered too much, and always.

That night, when they speak, he doesn’t tell Guts any of this, not about the app, or the papers, or anything. Guts is at work, because in the end more responsabilities and a phone just meant they could contact him whenever they wanted and have him come in. But he’s okay with that, Guts is, because he likes it, even though the phone is old, he jokes, and can’t take pictures of himself working. It’s not the first time Griffith thinks an old phone is really bothersome. No pictures of Guts lazying around at work. No pictures of an angry Guts waiting in line for his hamburger and the old man in front who’s paying with one cent coins. No pictures of Guts in the morning, when he happens to look at his reflection in the elevator, and his hair is doing that thing that makes him look like a brush. It’s not okay, even if they can do this later, when they talk, when they meet up, when they’re memories. He cares not for them, never has. In the end, he has to decide, he feels there’s something slipping and it’s nothing to do with Guts. It’s not even the phone’s fault, he knows. That’s the real problem. 

It’s two weeks later, the end of March, that they’re able to meet again. He shows Guts the app that he’s been filling on his own these past weeks, secretly. Like a mother and her scrapbook. Not that he’d know a mother, but something like it. Guts laughs at him, of course, and makes fun of it, calls him silly, but the way he looks at it, comments on everything there, and does it with interest and surprise and emotion, like he doesn’t really believe it yet, makes Griffith smile. Even if he doesn’t know what it is that he shouldn’t let slip, at least the selfishness does little by little.


	8. warming to the coldness of things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> same au as there's gotta be a record  
> for noteli

Lonely drops venture in a race down the kitchen window. Standing, Griffith watches them, roots for one or the other, thinks about how some of them stop midway, wonders why. At a distance behind them on the glass, out of focus, the buildings surrounding his look beautiful, their orange rooves standing out, cut out from the grey, late morning skies. At his feet, Destroyer eats his beakfrast from the metal bowl, his tail swinging in the air. It’s only a couple more seconds before he turns, leaves the drops to their own, and goes back into the bedroom, after stopping to pet Destroyer once more, revelling on the way the cat arches its back under his hand, how the scar on his head is only noticeable if you know where to touch.

Guts is still under the covers, the blinds are still drawn, it’s dark and the rain soothing, a murmur of the outside that’s still not in, a barrier he can still draw. It’s almost enough for him to want to stay. He doesn’t dare wake Guts, not that he doesn’t enjoy him being grumpy, his eyelids looking like they must feel, heavy with sleep, wary of the light of day, but he keeps thinking about the droplets on the picture window so he stops midway. In the kitchen the cups of coffee slowly lose their warmth. Butter won’t melt on Guts’ toasts. Silently, unseen, Destroyer enters the room—he must be finished—and jumps on the bed, curls up on a free space left by Guts’ body and the man groans and Griffith laughs.

"It’s raining," he says once he’s done laughing, and opens the blinds inwards, lets the grey light inside. His gaze fixates on the drops on that window for only a second.

Guts hums, then turns to shield himself from light, and mumbles with his back turned toward the cat: "Destroyer get off," but of course it does nothing, it doesn’t work. Griffith’s still strangely immobile, watching. "Destroyer…" Guts says, words surfacing in the midst of constant annoyed humming, moving his leg so the cat will have no choice but to move, too. Then he stops humming his irritation, and is silent for some moments. Griffith knows what’s coming, knows Guts is gathering strength, so he too is silent until Guts’ voice starts, unsure and mumbling "F-fluff… Pumpkin…" He clears his throat and tries a second time, with more conviction, "Fluff Pumpkin, get off the bed."

Destroyer raises his head at his name and makes an attempt to move, scoots over an inch. It’s more than nothing, and Griffith cracks a smile, proud. Gathering the nerve to say Destroyer’s real name is probably what prompts Guts to get up. He frowns when Griffith kisses him as he walks by him towards the bathroom, but his hand lingers in the air, drawn back at Griffith, as if he didn’t know himself what it’s doing.

"S’raining, huh?" Guts says once he’s back out. Griffith nods twice, tight lipped smile, signals for Guts to follow him into the kitchen, bites his lip when Guts’ foot is hidden entirely by the leg of his pajama. It must feel like he’ll trip because Guts looks down and pulls on the light blue fabric to free the foot, and Griffith has to turn around and start his way.

It isn't until he's had three sips of the coffee, leaning back on the kitchen counter right in front of Griffith, that Guts can speak without sounding like his mouth is full of cotton.  
"You fed Destroyer already?"  
"Yes."  
"Thanks."

As if on cue, Destroyer emerges from the hallway to jump on the one couch in the living room and sits there, staring at the two of them drink their coffee in the kitchen, the only thing separating the two rooms is the change of wood flooring into tiles.

"Destroyer, get off th’couch," Guts starts.  
"It’s useless like that."  
And Guts groans again, like he groans every time. 

 

The first time Griffith brought Destroyer home—it rained on that day too—and showed him to Guts, cradled in his arms, peering at the rest of the world like he was already used to it and everything, the stitches on his head visible, the skin exposed, pink, Guts had groaned too.  
\- What should we name him?  
\- Uh, I dunno… — Guts had scratched his neck and Griffith remembered how awkward it all still was, living together, even though it had been two months, because he thought two months was a long enough amount of time, then.  
\- What about Avenger?  
\- No.  
\- Hm. Destroyer?  
\- Yeah, — Guts had said, and he’d looked excited, breaking out into a smile, — I like that.  
\- I like it too, — Griffith had looked down at Destroyer, frowned slightly at the wound, « his old name was Fluff Pumpkin, » he’d said while giggling and Guts had groaned before laughing.  
\- That’s dumb.  
Griffith had looked at him with a smile and nodded and he’d felt genuinely happy. Guts’ eyes were closed and he was still laughing and Griffith was holding the cat and he’d felt genuinely happy. Later, he’d made Destroyer’s first bed out of the cardboard of the box where for years he’d kept the notes they’d shared the first time they met, filled it with some of his and Guts’ old shirts for warmth.

 

 

\- I wish he’d learn it already. It’s been almost a year, — Guts says not particularly to Griffith, and then pauses for concentration before letting out « Fluff Pumpkin get off the couch, » but without enough conviction for the cat to care. With a sigh he returns to his toast and his coffee, and with a smile Griffith poses a hand on Guts’ arm, kisses his cheek and walks back into the hallway, towards the bathroom, finish getting ready.

The steam on the bathroom mirror is gone, the only traces of its existence are the drops etched into its surface, stopped on their tracks. He takes a selfie of himself reflected on it that he’ll send to Guts later on in the day and notices some of the drops can be made out in the picture. They should clean it this afternoon, or tomorrow. There are other things they should clean. He hopes Guts remembers to clean the litterbox, but since it’s raining maybe he won’t. Guts’ll leave in an hour or so and neither of them will be back until late in the afternoon. He brushes his hair again, tries going for a high pony tail—another selfie—or a bun—and another—but doesn’t. His phone says he’s not running late, for once, so he gives himself two seconds to think about stopping midway, the end of the journey existing in its middle. To think about thinking it over. The smile the mirror had thrown back at him is gone. It’s another two seconds before he realises he’s immobile again, so he opens the door of the bathroom, closes the light. When he stares up from his slippers—they have sheep printed in them, a gift from Casca who thought he’d feel mocked and didn’t know he’d like them, really—at the end of the hallway he can see Guts and Destroyer and stops himself completely again. He puts a hand to the hallway window, softly, barely, feeling the coldness of the glass, of the rain outside, and from that spot he watches.

Guts is putting a tiny yellow plastic raincoat on Destroyer. It was one of the things Destroyer kept from his old life. They’d laughed about it, Griffith particularly, though a part of him knew Guts must’ve thought about how deeply the old lady had cared for the cat, and the thought of Guts feeling deeply, though secretly, moved had made him dizzy. Had made him want to show he could care for Guts and Destroyer that way, even more so in his own manner, too, and he’d clenched his jaw tight. They’d put the raincoat on the last drawer under the kitchen sink, because there went the things they never used: candles in case of a power shortage, napkins, a giant plastic fork that came with the ladles and spatulas, a large tablecloth that was there when they got to the place, too big for anything they owned. It’s a wonder Guts remembers its existence but maybe it’s not. Destroyer puts up a struggle but it’s minimal, just enough to let Guts know he doesn’t approve but will yield out of diplomacy. It’s still struggle enough for Guts to talk to him in a stern voice, « bend your paw, Destroyer, or it’ll hurt » then quietly, softly, whisper « please, Fluff Pumpkin. » It’s so low it’s almost inaudible but not low enough that Griffith will miss it. Or miss « bend your other paw, yeah. We’re gonna go out and if you wanna go out too ya’ll need the raincoat, ‘cause it’s raining, ya know, ya shouldn’t go out without it or you’ll get all wet. »

Griffith thinks he wants to take a picture, the phone is in his pocket, but he’s standing still, his fingertips cooling further and further at the spots where they touch the window. Maybe there are traces of steam around them. He would look at them, or take the picture, but he feels as though not a hair in him is capable of movement, that he’s been frozen in time, even though he’s sure his body must be shaking from how fast his heart is beating. And he knows he smiles. Guts pulls on the white strings that help the tiny raincoat take hold on Destroyer’s body, adjusts the tiny cap over the cat’s head, and scratches the neck and under his chin. « That’s it, » he says, « now yer all done. » Griffith stares out the window at this. There’s no steam around his fingertips and he wonders whether he should feel cold. With his finger, he absentmindedly tries freeing one of the stopped drops, to allow it to continue on its way as he stares back at Guts, but he’s on the wrong side of the glass, of their tracks. He thinks he knows now why they stop, he thinks he knows some things will keep slipping unless they’re immobile, or maybe not, but at least he thinks this over with a smile. At the end of the hallway, Guts finally looks at him, surprised, maybe a little embarrassed, and scratches his head before smiling himself. Griffith holds onto that smile before lowering his gaze and going into the bedroom for the rest of his things, because his phone tells him he’s late, again.


	9. made of clay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> literally honest to god very literally in the literal sense 4 years old so excuse my language

She looked no older than nine. Though tall and graceful—nothing like her unprepossesing peers awkwardly gaining adult bodies—the soft roundness of childhood gave her away: she wasn’t a day older than nine. Probably a baker’s apprentice by the looks of her, definitely not surrendered to dark alleyways were food was scarce and days were long. She’d been outside the city’s walls recently too, maybe even minutes ago, her scraped knees matched a face smudged with dirt left there when she brushed away her hair. It hadn’t been more than a second she’d been standing in front of the tall man who walked beside Griffith, while her hands behind her back hid something from their sight, and she was a perfect picture of everything they were not.  
“Hey,” Guts scratched the back of his head, stared down at the child, “what d'ya want, kid?”  
Boldness that Griffith could recognise behind apprehension showed itself fully with the edges of her mouth curving into a smile.  
“Can we help you, little lady?” he added.  
The girl seemed unable to register soft voices because her hands were lifted at the same time as her gaze travelled to meet Guts’ and hold it as if he was the only one there. Her secret treasure, a bouquet of wild flowers she must’ve picked out herself, was now on display; an offering of frailty and ugliness, very much unlike her.  
“Wha, for me?”  
She nodded for the tall shocked man, ignoring Griffith’s chuckles, but Guts only grunted in reply, shifted his weight to the left leg, irritatedly looking away. The chuckles gave way to a smile which parted to offer: “Thank you very much, miss,” and remained to show secret satisfaction when the brave disposition of the young girl didn’t waver at rejection. She nodded once again at Guts—he was the only one there even if the flowers rested in someone else’s hands—and dashed off, disappearing into the crowded street.  
“Well?” Griffith asked, although perhaps he was more aware than Guts about the reason for his reactions.  
“Wha’ do I need flowers for?”  
Griffith rearranged the weak bouquet in his hand then fastened its stems, brown where the girl had unwillingly folded them too hard, on Guts’ leather strap near the shoulder. It fit perfectly: the ugly wild flowers and the worn leather and the expression on Guts’ face, they were made of the same material, carved by the same artisan. The smile was broader, something inside him reassured by the girl’s determination, by her swift retreat, by the way Guts’ face appeared when he tried looking at what was now pinned to his clothes.  
“They’re a useless matter. It’s why they’re valuable; why they’re not sold here.” Griffith patted the broad chest once, softly: a signal that the conversation was over, he had ended it, had already explained.  
“What does that even mean?” Guts asked, catching up to his commander who had started walking the narrow spaces between stalls and people and the silence provided by others’ voices during his indecision. “I don’t get it.”  
“Means what you want it to, that’s why they’re so precious.”


	10. the fighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> boxer au

in the clearing stands a boxer  
and a fighter by his trade  
and he carries the remainders  
of every glove that laid him down  
and cut him till he cried out  
in his anger and his shame  
“i am leaving, i am leaving”  
but the fighter still remains

Throwing matches shouldn't discourage him.

By the end of it, he received money not bet on him. That was the sole reason he fought. The only reason he was there at all.  
As it was, later, in the dressing rooms, he’d look around at the other fighters and felt disgust.  
All the same, money would be in his pockets soon enough. On other people’s pockets, too, and they’d celebrate.  
Except those who had bet on him. He couldn’t blame them.  
People could celebrate, they just never celebrated him.  
Even when he actually won, which wasn’t often. Or more like only because he lost. Because the odds always looked bad for the others, his opponents, and never for him. And so business was good, if you bet against the odds. If you were in the know.  
But he wasn't a gambler, never been. He didn’t bet on himself. Just lost or won, depending on what was needed of him, right there, right then. Depending on what the old man told him to do; he was a gambler, the old man, always been, but he never bet on Guts, either. Bet only on his failure. Been betting on it ever since the failure of his birth. At least the old man was consistent. Not bad for a gambler.

Throwing matches shouldn’t discourage him yet there he’d been one day, after a match, filled with disgust, staring at the new wave of fighters coming in. Staring at him. Coming in with an army of followers, as if this wasn’t a dirty old backwater town’s poverty riddled boxing ring no one cared for. As if this place was something else entirely. As if he was something else entirely. Someone.

  
He and Guts were not in the same league, of course. Some other weight. Lower? Lower, of course. But the first thing Guts thought when he first saw him that day was that his face was beautiful. And that it would be a shame if others punched it. Though it sure looked like no one ever did, or it would've been marred, deformed. Like his. Like everyone else’s.

That was the first time, though, his first thought. Later he would get used to seeing that face in the crowd at his matches, as if he knew the schedule, as if his smug grin knew the outcome beforehand, too. Always there, staring. Disappointed? Something like it. Something else too, wholly different.

So he started attending that guy’s matches, too. Just watching him. (Learned his name was Griffith, learned his record was unbeaten, learned Griffith should not have been there. He should not have been there, either. At Griffith’s matches, that is, in the crowd, watching matches he had no vested interest in but unable to look away or leave.)

And of course, Griffith never threw his fights. Always won. Maybe his opponents did, throw their fights, but for a second, Guts thought it wouldn't even be necessary. Nothing to arrange. Nothing to bet against or even for. Griffith won because he won. He deserved it.  
He stopped himself to grin, standing at the back of the small backwater town’s gym, the sweaty necks, sweaty heads, sweaty hands of other watchers hiding him, hopefully hiding him from view of the one on the ring. That he would have that kind of faith for a beautiful face, he had to laugh at himself. That he would have that kind of faith for anyone. Or faith at all.

He did, though. Every time he stayed behind after throwing his match, every time he shot down some gambler’s uncalled for comments, every time some sweaty, bearded guy reeking of the same alcohol the old man reeked of, thought he could be friendly, thought he could say it was good for business that the pretty face always won and the big guy always lost, he thought how they were not the same. Griffith and him were not on the same weight bracket. Not on the same level.

And so he expected the first time Griffith was there to witness his victory to be different. Something else. Not sure what, but something different.  
All Griffith said when they found each other in the lockers was « I didn’t expect you to win. »

No one did, really. Except the old man had instructed him last minute, near the lockers, behind that same bench, that it was to be done, because they—both of them he said but included others too—they needed to have this guy lose all his money.

Victory didn’t taste any different from defeat. It was failure all the same. But this time, it was something else. Unexpected. In the dressing rooms (Griffith didn’t have a match that day, he shouldn’t have been there but he was) Guts, sitting on that bench, towel over his head, mouthpiece still in place, for the hell of it, found himself gazing upwards to a beautiful face, expecting to feel disgusting, but feeling something else. Something wholly different.  
« Let’s fight. »

I could. Make something of myself. Understand.

It would've been easy to say no, to win, to lose, to be sacked and lose every cent he could ever hope to make, lose every single thing the old man had. So easy to follow that man's path and say, yes, that's me too, I’ll win, I’ll lose, no matter the outcome, just for myself. Just that. For the hell of it. But that wasn't him. Winning had never been a priority. (Losing hadn’t either). More like a curse. Staying alive, eating, having a place to live, no, a place to stay, getting on the ring to throw punches, no matter the consequence, at least that made some sense.  
At least most days, these days.   
Used to be every day before these days.  
But these days.  
These days not a lot of things made much sense anymore.

You can't live off dreams, he still remembered being told. Not people like him, not the old man. You can’t live off dreams, Guts, Gambino said, once or twice, when Guts still thought making pro would mean something, would have any kind of effect, had any sense to it at all.  
You can’t live off dreams.  
Others though. Maybe.

Maybe others could live off their dreams and follow them through, with their unmarred faces and flawless record and offering to fight him, from a different weight, and winning, and losing, and betting nothing.

Fighting for the fun of it.

Sitting in the locker after a fight and gazing up at a beautiful face.

Standing in his corner after the gym had closed up for the day.  
« It’ll just be the two of us. »  
Gloves on his hands, excitement in his vein, a broad smile on his face.

For the hell of it.

Throwing a punch, catching one, never aiming for the face—not wanting to—but taking cuts to his jaw, putting up his arms, putting them down, being held against the ropes.

Against the ropes.

His muscles aching and tired from exertion and his smile still in place.

« Are you having fun? »  
The words muffled by the mouthpiece, but distinctly clear. And yes echoing through every one of his bones and muscles.  
Yes. I’m having fun.

Blocking blows with his forearms, with the gloves close to his face, his feet wide apart, mesmerized by the graceful fluid movements of his opponent, his footwork, his hair tied up and some locks coming loose to frame his face. To frame his smile.

« I’m having fun too. »

And not winning. Not losing. Just finishing the match out of exhaustion, continuing it afterwards at a ramen place, nursing their bruises with the warm broth and the cool air of a winter night on their backs as they make their way through town, nowhere special, nowhere in particular. A match of equals that draws longer and longer through the night and is punctuated by words shared with little caution, thrown like blows on the ring, that leads them to the door of Griffith’s apartment where he lets his hair down and Guts finds his hand—red bloodied knuckles—twirling around one of the locks.

Griffith wins, though.

When he takes Guts’ hand in his and kisses the wounded knuckles softly, gently. Knock out.

That fight is, like everything with Griffith, something else.  
Something like a reason. Like a place to live.


	11. Blue Days, Black Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> saccharine sweet xmas romcom directed by garry marshall n nora ephron

The line rings twice. Griffith waits, leafing through a thick book on the table, until Guts' gruff voice comes on at the other end laced with sleep.  
“Yeah?”  
“It's me.”  
Griffith can hear him sitting up on his couch. He imagines it. He's never seen the inside of Guts' apartment but likes imagining the space, going by the way noise and voices carry over their shared service line.  
“Hey, how're ya?”  
He holds back a smile.  
“Casca called you earlier.”  
“Oh, I—”  
“I didn't know you'd become such good friends.”  
“I picked up the phone couple times you were away. We got to talking, so—”  
Griffith thinks vaguely how he's never even seen Guts. Not really.  
“So now she calls for you.”  
“Guess so.”  
“She said she'd call back, around this time too. I should get off the line.”  
“Oh,” Griffith likes to imagine—and maybe it's true, maybe—that Guts' oh is a disappointed one. That, like him, Guts misses their late night talks over the phone, when neither of them can sleep. “Yeah.” It sounds more like a question.  
“Your day was good?”  
“Yeah!” and Guts' tone is back to the hopeful, childlike lilt Griffith's grown fond of. “I got a whole crate of fish from one of the vendors!”

Griffith laughs, imagining the look of sheer joy on Guts' face, being handed a crateful of fish after he helps clean out the market once it closes down for the day. He can imagine it because a week or so after their second late night talk over the phone, Griffith went to have a coffee at the place in front of where Guts was working—a bakery where he helped unload flour and sugar early mornings. He watched him from behind the glass for a good ten or fifteen minutes before deciding it was too long. When he figured Guts was home that evening he dialed their line code and asked him if he'd been at the corner of 1st and Turner, because he thought he might've seen him by Pat's bakery. He bit his lip after he said this. He remembers because he'd never done such a thing before. And he felt so excited when Guts replied “Yeah, I was! You shoulda said hi!” that he feigned disinterest and told Guts he was calling to let him know he had a call to make that might last longer than usual, and not to pick up the receiver until after forty minutes had passed. He called Charlotte then and he can't remember a single thing they said to each other.

“What kind of fish?”  
“Uh, cusk-eel, I think.”  
“Do you know how to cook those?”  
“Guess so. Why? They hard to cook or something?”  
It's not that he knows by experience, since generally he gets by on whatever's at hand when he remembers he hasn't eaten, and fish isn't exactly on his price range, but he can guess.  
“Not particularly.”  
“Thought I'd fry them, in the pan, yeah? I dunno though. There's a lot of them.”  
“It's a whole crate.”  
“So, I dunno, maybe you could—”  
Casca, obviously, chooses this exact precise moment to make her call. There're two beeps, signaling an incoming call, and Guts scrambles with his words, like he was on display and the eyes of the world were set on him.  
“I'll leave you two to it,” Griffith says, “Bye Guts.”

 

 

 

 

 

Charlotte always calls early, when it's not Griffith's time. Guts always picks up the line—sometimes he gets short notice jobs that pay better, he told Griffith one night—and always makes a choked, distressed sound before putting down the receiver.  
“It's Guts' time, Charlotte,” Griffith tells her. “I'll call you later.”  
“Oh, oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize the time—I'm so sorry.”  
“It's okay, I'll let him know it was a mistake. I'll talk to you later.”  
“Um, yes, thank you, Griffith.”

The line goes dead and then connects to Guts' end.  
“She's sorry. She didn't realize the time. I'm sorry, too.”  
“S'fine, y'know,” Griffith imagines him ruffling his own hair, like he watched him do that day. “I don't really mind, y'know.”  
“It's your time, we agreed.”  
“S'fine, though.”  
“You should call now.”  
“Oh, yeah,” he laughs, a soft, small thing.  
“Good morning, Guts. And I hope you have a good day.”  
“Uh, eh, yeah. Yeah, y'too.”  
The line beeps a couple times, enough for Griffith to calm down. Guts' voice, his words, when he's caught off guard by what Griffith says, they come and go in his mind like a wave crashing against the dulling rocks of his day, weathering their stiff hermetism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
It's rare for Guts to call. In their four months sharing the service line, he's only called once, just to try out their code. Even if, by all indications, he enjoys talking to Griffith, he somehow refrains from initiating conversations himself. All in all he's not much of a talker. So when the phone rings, Griffith isn't expecting Guts to be on the other end, half amused, half panicked.  
“Think I burnt this thing?”  
“Guts?”  
“The cusk-eel, I mean. Tried frying it, kinda forgot it was on the pan. S'all stuck to it now, a mess.”  
“So you didn't know how to make them, huh?”  
“I did! S'just, I got distracted.”  
“I see. Need me to call the Fire Department?”  
“No! S'not funny, why're ya laughing so much?”  
“No reason.”  
“Well, d'ya know a better way?”  
“Is this an invitation?”  
“Uh, eh, well, I dunno, if ya wanna come? Unless yer busy, course.”  
Griffith laughs again.  
“I'll be there. What's your address again? And I'm guessing you don't have saffron, or dill, or rosemary.”  
“None a that fancy stuff, no.”  
“Why don't you just eat the fish raw, scales and all. Hear the eyes are tasty.”  
“Please, just come over. 332 Museum, top floor. ”  
“No ciboulette either, right?”  
Guts groans, it echoes across his apartment. Griffith will no longer have to imagine it—the couch, the table, the floorboards—and he feels his hands almost shake with the excitement as he reaches for ingredients around his kitchen, receiver cradled between his ear and shoulder.  
“I'll see you in ten.”  
He doesn't wait for Guts' reply, afraid he won't be able to let go of the receiver: he enjoys listening to the sound of Guts' breath, betraying his earnest worry over burning a piece of fish—he knows how precious it is, after all, Griffith understands all too well—and his nature, open and sturdy, and relishes on the fact it was him whom Guts called.

  
Museum street is a couple blocks away, hence the shared telephone line, and Guts' building has no elevator so Griffith climbs the seven flights of stairs with the paper bag in tow, almost humming to himself, almost unable to believe this is what's become of him—him who had no interest in this sort of thing other than—he who's changed so much in only four months of having phone conversations with a man he's never really met. He wrinkles the nose at the thought but still the word fate repeats over and over in his mind as his heart races just a bit—it's cause of the stairs.

  
“You have flour and salt at least?” he says for all greeting when Guts, tall and imposing, opens the door and stands at the threshold with a look of surprise on his face.  
“You're uh—”  
“What?”  
“Uh, not what I expected?”

Griffith watches his expression—nothing about it is guarded and he wonders how this man managed to live the life Griffith knows he's lived and still come out of it with such innocence—and pushes past him into the apartment.

“At least invite me in if you're going to insult me.”  
“S'not an insult!” he's defensive. It's endearing. Griffith doesn't turn, making his way into the kitchen, taking note of all the things he got wrong, and those he got right, about the small apartment. “I meant, I didn't expect ya to be so beautiful, not that I thought ya'd be ugly—I mean, not—I didn't think about it—but, like in a—like, I dunno!”

Griffith knows—it has been four months of open talks after all—that if he pushes it, Guts'll back away into a corner and give up the fight, concede, lose by default.

“It really does smell of burnt fish in here.”

The kitchen window, small as it is, is wide open but the smoke hasn't all cleared. On the stove, the pan with the remnants of Guts' failed attempts stands like a monolith of triumph, fish bests man, for now.

“Tried scraping it but—”  
“Not to worry,” Griffith says, still not turning towards Guts and reaching inside the bag he's placed by the stove, “I brought my own.”

The kitchen is too small.

Guts must notice when his hips jostle against Griffith's for the third time while he's showing Griffith where to find whatever he's looking for. When he does, Griffith turns to face him and they're close enough that Griffith can see Guts' hair on the back of his neck stand on end, he can see the way he blinks, eyes wider each time, and the slight parting of his lips before he makes himself cough. Griffith has half a mind to blow air on his lips and see what happens. Guts ultimately opts to leave for the adjoining room, where there's a small table and a low couch, and do there the cutting Griffith instructed him to do.

 

 

 

 

 

  
“How'd ya learn to make this, anyway?”  
They're sitting on opposite ends of the low couch, too low for the table really, in front of their respective dishes, where the cusk-eel rests in saffron sauce.  
“Around,” he shrugs, leaning down towards his plate, and looking at Guts through his lashes with a smile.

The day after Guts told him about the fish, he asked the old lady at work if she had any recipes for cusk-eel and she wrote one down—the best one according to her, one that Charlotte would love—on the back of his notebook.

“You know I didn't have this kinda stuff growing up, or anything—” Guts nods knowingly, “but going to university with rich kids, you pick up a couple things.”  
“I thought cusk-eel was some sorta poor man's fish, yeah?”  
Griffith laughs.  
“Isn't that sad? People who have so much get to say some stuff is for the poor, and we can't even afford those.”  
Guts nods again, and this time he stares at his empty dish.  
“I'm glad you came over. Didn't think ya would, but I'd been wanting to invite ya for a while, y'know.”  
“Why?”  
“Cause we talk everyday—”  
“Why'd you think I wouldn't come?”  
“Uh, I dunno. Thought ya'd think it boring or something, like, you know so many people—”  
“I don't talk to any of them every day.”  
“—and yer life is I dunno exciting.”  
Once more, Griffith finds himself laughing, completely and utterly given to the warmth that exists in the spaces between him and Guts, whether here, in person, or on the phone.  
“I like talking to you. I'm glad you asked me over.”

 

  
The sound of a phone ringing wakes Griffith. He notices then that he's not in his bed—that he barely occupies, anyway, he's too busy for that sort of thing—but on a couch. The low couch at Guts' apartment. There's a blanket—tattered and worn—and a sheet covering him. He holds them close at the thought of Guts placing them on him, careful enough not to wake him. The night before, as Guts chopped rosemary Griffith'd noticed his touch was so gentle, so careful. He hadn't expected it. Just the prospect of all the surprises he holds gets him to tighten his grip on the blanket and the sheet, knuckles white. He watches the phone from his comfortable position, contemplating picking up the receiver—it's his own line too, after all—but before he makes a decision Guts comes in his line of view and stops the ringing.

“Uh, oh, hey, yeah... No, no... Uh, sorry,” he looks at Griffith. It's so easy to read him, Griffith thinks, and he shakes his head. “Ya can try again, I won't pick up this... No, no, it's fine. Yeah,” he sighs and hangs up.  
“Morning,” Griffith says from his makeshift bed, smiling in a way it almost makes his face ache, in a way he's barely ever used before.  
“Eh, uh, she said she'd call back so—” the phone starts ringing again.  
This time Griffith gets it. When he does, Guts walks out of the room, into the bathroom, probably because he doesn't want Griffith to think he's prying.  
“Good morning, Charlotte. Are you well?”  
“I am, I am. Eh, I shouldn't be calling at this time?”  
“It's his time.”  
“He said it was fine, though,” Griffith can hear her pout over the phone.  
“He's being kind. I'll call you back.”  
“Alright, Griffith. I—I'll talk to you later.”  
Griffith looks at the closed door of the bathroom, lingers a moment too long.  
“Griffith?”  
“I'll call you. I promise.”

He knocks on the door when he's done and Guts comes out almost immediately.  
“Thank you for the blankets.”  
“Yeah, of course. Ya fell asleep while talking.”  
“Guess I was very tired.”  
“Ya should rest when ya can. Not healthy for ya to go without sleep. Eh, ya can stay, eh, if ya want?”  
“To rest?”  
“For breakfast?”  
“Alright.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
The phone rings almost as soon as he's done canceling his plans with Charlotte. He pictures Guts' fingers trembling slightly as he dials the four number code that connects the shared ends of the line, bites his lip in expectation.  
“Hi—”  
“Griffith?”  
“Oh. Casca. How are you?”  
“Hm, you sound disappointed. Expecting your girlfriend? I thought this was Guts' time.”  
“It is. Force of habit.”  
“How've you been? I haven't seen you in—I dunno. Long enough.”  
“Mmhm. I'm doing well, you?”  
“Eh, yeah, me too.”  
“Close with Guts, are you?”  
“He's... available,” she says the word cautiously, as if the implications were going to hurt Griffith. He understands she resents him for spending his time on his studies, on his work, on Charlotte's family's friends and contacts, but that's what they'd always talked about. It's what she'd wanted for him, too. It'd be demeaning if he said he was sorry, he knows. But he is.  
“I know.”  
“So...”  
“We should meet up, soon.”  
“Oh, yeah. I'd like that,” her voice lifts. It almost breaks his heart.  
“I would too.”

 

The line rings twice before Guts picks up.  
“It's me.”  
“Hey! I just got done talking to Casca, said she'd talked to ya too.”  
“Are you doing anything tonight?”  
“Uh, nah, I gotta be up early to go to Pat's.”  
“Come over. I'll make dinner.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Should I—should I bring some fish?”  
“No,” Griffith laughs, “no need.”

 

 

 

  
“Two dates in a week, huh?”

Guts laughs, clear like summer rain. He sits on the armchair in front of the bookshelves holding the large collection of mostly meaningless texts Griffith's had to read for one reason or the other. From the pillow on the floor, Griffith watches him, framed against the colorful books.

“Dig in.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Thank you. I'm glad you came,” he lets silence settle between them while they eat, watches Guts enjoy the meal, his eyes crinkling with delight, a small smile on his lips.  
“What do you think, of all this? Us meeting through our phone?”  
“Huh? Funny, isn't it?” Guts says around a mouthful of bread.  
“People are born, they're around, they die. It's hard to change what you're born into. Especially for people like us, there's no changing it.”  
“What you mean?”  
“It's hard changing the circumstances of your birth. It's like it's fated.”  
“Huh, but you have.”  
“I have?”  
“Sure ya have.”  
“Do you think it's fated too, that we'd meet?”  
“Nah, I don't think much about those things, y'know. I'm glad it happened. Got nothing to do with fate.”  
“I see,” he smiles. He's about to let another silence settle, now that they're done eating.  
“Speaking of the phone,” but Guts has other plans. “Casca said we should all get together.”  
“Did she? All of whom?”  
“You, me, her, and, uh, Charlotte.”  
“Oh,” he notices Guts' sight, his mood, his hopes, drop when he says the word, by the way he says the word. He even feels himself deflating at the sight, but there's nothing he can do to stop it. “Sure, let's see. I'll ask Charlotte about it.”  
Guts doesn't reply.  
“So, you've met Casca?”  
“No, not yet. We plan to, Saturday.”  
“That's tomorrow.”  
“Oh, yeah, guess it is.”  
“Sounds good, no?”  
“Y-yeah, we're grabbing lunch,” the deflated tone and look still lingers in his words. Guts watches his hands, twiddles his thumbs.  
He can't fault Guts, though. He knows his words pack a muted resentment he's trying to ignore but can't quite mask. If he tried harder it'd be even more obvious so he continues but Guts' soul seems to evaporate, the life sucked out of him without much care.

The next morning, Griffith wakes nestled in his armchair. Vague memories of Guts carrying him there while he was drowsy with sleep keeping him warm under the coat Guts must've put on him. As soon as he's awake enough, he calls Guts to wish him luck on his lunch.

He's away most of the day, only home enough to change into his best clothes, so he can attend the dinner party at Charlotte's family's manor—all of her father's associates will be there—and he doesn't wonder whether Guts tried to contact him more than twice. And he doesn't spend more than ten or fifteen minutes thinking about Guts and Casca laughing or chatting or arguing over lunch, repeatedly, their hands brushing. It's the first time in over four months that he and Guts haven't traded at least a couple words, wished each other a good morning, a good night. He doesn't miss it much. He barely thinks about it as he lies on his bed, after Charlotte leaves to sneak back into her parents' house, sleepless and restless, staring at the spot on the ceiling where he carved all the words Guts spoke to him late at night while they both laid in their beds and talked of growing up, taking a beating, imagining impossible futures, discovering the endless woods on the outskirts on harsh winter walks and ending up at the lake where they'd push the other in, laugh at the look on his face, hold out his hand to help him up, laced fingers, warm embraces by the fire, mouth against the back of Guts' neck, nose in his hair, and sleep.

 

 

 

 

Guts opens the door about five or so minutes after Griffith's first knock. His hair and neck are wet, the light shirt he probably threw on as soon as he got out of the shower damp, as are his gray sweatpants. He's still drier than Griffith, at least, whose hair hangs, dripping, over the soaked shoulders of his jacket.  
“Griffith? What happened?”  
“Guess I lost my key.”  
“Uh, come in, I'll get ya a towel,” Guts place a hand on Griffith's back—warm through the layers of wet clothing—and guides him into the bathroom.  
“No blow dryer, I'm guessing.”  
“Uh, no, ain't got enough hair for that. Gimme.”

Griffith shrugs out of his jacket and lets Guts hang it from a hook as he takes off his shirt, hangs it from the shower curtain rack, and wrings out his hair in the bathtub, the sound of the falling water seemingly entrancing, since Guts stares at his back.

“What is it?”  
“That scar,” he says, inching closer. “Is it from...?” He runs his finger, barely, over the scar, snaking up Griffith's back, starting at his hip.  
Griffith shivers.  
“I-it is.”  
“M'sorry.”  
“Don't be,” Griffith turns. He places his hand on Guts' arm. With Guts' hand still on his back, over the scar, they're both in each other's spaces, so close he can relish the warmth between them.  
“Guts,” Guts' lips are parted in the same way they were weeks ago, in his kitchen, and Griffith's hand slowly rises for the tips of his fingers to meet them.  
“M'sorry,” Guts says before the fingers are there. “The towel.”

He escapes their mock embrace—their pantomime, separated by an invisible glass window—bobs his head looking for towels underneath the sink. He takes one and places it on Griffith, the way he'd drape a cape over his shoulders, avoids looking Griffith in the eye before exiting the bathroom.  
“Coffee?”  
“Yeah, thanks.”

He curls up on the couch, hair tied up inside the towel, and snuggles into Guts' long sleeved shirt, at least three sizes too big.

“What're ya gonna do?” Guts comes carrying two cups of coffee, the steam rising in the same pattern of Griffith's scar. “Bout the key.”  
“Oh, someone's got my spare.”  
“Need to call?”  
“Mm, it can wait. I should give you that spare, really.”  
“Huh? H'come?”  
“You're closer. Makes more sense.”  
“Uh, would ya really want that?”  
“Why wouldn't I?”  
“I dunno. Ya trust me that much?”  
“Course I do. Isn't it obvious?” he says this behind his coffee, words swirling among the beige clouds of its surface.  
Guts laughs and scratches the back of his head.  
“Guess so.”  
“I've missed our talks.”  
“Ya have?”  
“It's been a... lonely couple days.”  
“What? No Charlotte?” Guts says this with a teasing smile but there's real concern on his face. Maybe even hope.  
“I've seen her, it's just—What about you?”  
“Yeah, missed them too.”  
“How was Saturday?”  
“Oh, good. Went for a run Sunday mornin' by the riverside, she said ya used to go together.”  
“That was so many years ago. Sounds nice. You're good friends, I see.”  
“Did ya ask Charlotte?”  
“What about?” Griffith distracts himself watching drops of rain racing down the window.  
“Y'know, getting together? Casca wants to see ya.”  
“Oh. I forgot. I will.”  
“Ya cold?” Guts asks after a beat, watching Griffith, who's still staring out the window, curl himself up further into the couch, further into Guts' shirt.  
“I'm fine. Your shirt's comfortable,” he turns to look at Guts again, standing against the wall. “Smells like you.”

He engraves the look on Guts' face in the best part of his mind, where he keeps nothing but that look, and the hopeful dream that kept him alive throughout his childhood, adolescence, that keeps him alive now.

“T-that bad, huh?”  
Griffith laughs and even closes his eyes. He tries to remember if he'd ever felt this way, before Guts. If he'd had let himself.

“I should go. I'm sure my clothes are dry.”  
“Ya haven't called yer friend.”  
“Friend?”  
“For yer spare keys.”  
“Oh. You're right. He's not a friend, though. Can I?” he signals the phone.  
“All yours,” Guts says, and lets out a small chuckle, amused at his joke.

The phone rings four times before someone picks up.  
“Hello?”  
“Hey, it's me. Can you meet me at mine in ten. I'm locked out.”  
“Who's this?”  
“Alright, great. I'll treat you something. See you there. Thanks.”  
“Hey, who is this?”  
“No, I'm at a friend's. See you.”  
“Hello? Who are y—”

“All done,” Griffith tells Guts, who smiles, relieved. “Can I drop by tomorrow, to hand you my spare?”  
“Yer really sure?”  
“Completely.”  
“Take my umbrella,” Guts reaches for it, propped up, like him, nonchalantly against the wall. It's a mossy green with a wooden handle and somehow it seems just like the kind of umbrella Guts would own. Unassuming, unprepossessing.  
“Won't you need it?” he takes the umbrella into his hands, wraps both of them around it like he was treating it carefully, gently, like Guts probably does.  
“Get it back to me tomorrow? When ya come by?”  
“Can I take your shirt too?”  
And Guts' face again reveals that look he's engraved and will treasure and he engraves this new version of it alongside it.  
“Y-yeah. Sure.”

 

 

 

 

 

  
The conversation starts out normally, like their usual ones. He can barely remember what was being said when he thinks he hears Guts pick up the receiver on his end and instead of letting out his accustomed choked gasp he just stays on the line. He knows exactly what he and Charlotte were talking about during the few moments Guts might've been at the other end of their shared service line. He knows his words can take on meanings he doesn't want them to.  
“Charlotte, I need to go,” he tells her immediately.  
She stumbles with her words, trying to ask for a reason why. But he's adamant on the urgency.  
“I really need to go. I'll call you back.”

The line goes dead after she says good bye and he dials the code and waits six, seven, eight tones. There's no reply. He keeps trying, though. On his fourth attempt, Guts picks up, his voice gruff and distant, as if he were talking while the receiver sits on the table, tossed aside.  
“Yeah?”  
“It's me.”  
“Yeah.”  
“I, uh, made extra Stolichny salad. Thought I'd share. Are you free?”  
“Uh, was on my way out. Can't.”  
“Oh. I understand. Maybe tomorrow?”  
“Yeah. Maybe,” the voice is more distant still, walking away from the receiver, a step farther with each word, with each intonation. It's not the voice of the man whose face he's etched so lovingly in his mind.

That night he doesn't sleep, curled up in his armchair, back against the bookshelves, he shrinks into Guts' shirt and replays the words he'd said to Charlotte over the phone after she told him she'd ran into Casca at the flower shop, and Casca had mentioned how she wanted to get together with her and Guts and him. Maybe one day they'll all look back at this and it'll sound funny. Maybe during someone's wedding. Maybe he'll meet with Guts and Casca, and bring Charlotte, and maybe there'll be children, and maybe he won't fill like killing every single one of those present at the thought that they could do this, have an outing like regular couples do, with another couple, with a man whose face is the thing that's keeping him alive, that's been keeping him alive. He meant what he said. He doesn't want to go for dinner or lunch or whatever with Guts and Casca, doesn't want to witness their burgeoning romance they're probably not aware of, doesn't want to meet them while he's there with Charlotte, doesn't want friendship with them. There's nothing there for him. There's nothing there for him and Guts.

He can't remember a time he's ever wanted something for the sake of wanting it, nothing else to it. It's maybe never happened before Guts picked up his end of the line the first day they introduced themselves to each other.

Morning finds him in the same position, his eyes stinging from the first rays of sun coming in through the window, drawing a yellow line across the tiles that fans open like a skirt, they trickle through his window like seed pods falling from the jacaranda.

It's noon before he finally gives in and half drags himself to his bed, lies on his side atop the covers until the end of the day falls outside his window, sinks the sun below the sea. The phone sat still, without any bells, for the whole day. Not even Charlotte's calls came—she'd said the night before she'd be gone with her parents to their cabin—not even the salespeople with their hopeful tones.

Before sleep he dials the four numbers to reach Guts' end but there's no reply. He gives up after the fifth attempt, tells himself to try again tomorrow.

By morning it's the phone that wakes him and he bites his lip just to tell himself it's fine to be excited yet he doesn't need to be this excited. He picks up only to find the old lady from work asking why he was missing yesterday—a first—and he finds an excuse that sounds too convincing for she worries and promises to stop by with some soup which costs him another ten minutes of dissuasion.

He's tempted to pick up the phone during Guts' allotted times but it doesn't ring and when he picks up the receiver half-heartedly expecting to hear Guts' voice on the other end—even if it's Casca he's talking to—there's just the dead tone awaiting him to dial.

He gives up.

His usual method for numbing whatever it is he's feeling, sharing his bed, is unattainable now that Charlotte's away so he reaches for the ridiculously expensive bottles of wine—too dear for those who can't afford it, free for those who can—Charlotte's mother has gifted him out of courtesy and sips bitter Cabernet out of a plastic cup—bear shaped—he's had for years.

He watches and listens to the phone ringing and has half a mind to laugh at its pathetic attempt to reach out to him, to his yearnings, at its cream-white color, at its plastic surface, at its rotary dial—a wheel of fortune—at the way its ringing—bells for a church he wants to abolish—loses meaning with each passing hour.

He loses count of the times he's watched the sun bobbing up and down the water level. That's not true. He wishes he'd lost count but he knows exactly how many days have passed as he's been laughing at how pathetic and small he is to suffer so much over losing something he'd told himself his entire life he should do without. It's a curse, to know this. He wishes he were able to lose count, lose mind, lose self.

When the door opens, after he thinks he hears some rolling, thundering knocks through the haze of his midday slumber, he starts laughing like it all was some sort of joke.

The look on Guts' face doesn't match the one he's committed to memory.

This look is filled with concern, it's devoid of any surprise, it's scared, and nervous, and its underlying theme is hurt and disappointment, expertly hidden behind worrisome resentment.

“Griffith!” Guts' voice laced with all the feelings Griffith could identify on his face, maybe some he's never experienced before too. “Used th'key—Y'okay? I—We was all worried. Charlotte's been callin', yer job people, yer classmates too, yer not picking up, she called me.”  
“Oh, I forgot to let her know.”  
“Wha—” Guts comes over slowly and steadily, approaching a wounded animal in the wild, hand extended before him signaling his peace, his gentle touch. “Wha's th'matter?”  
“You were worried?”  
“Y—course a was! Ya weren't answerin'! Thought somethin' musta happened, y'know,” his accent grows thicker with distress, Griffith notes, memorizes, catalogs. “Wha'happened?”  
“Hm. Nothing. I've been here.”  
“What's goin' on?”  
“You tried calling me?”  
“Well, yeah. 'Fter everyone was saying ya didn't answer.”  
“You really were worried?” Griffith extends his own hands towards Guts from within the armchair.  
“Yeah, I was,” Guts comes closer still, within reach. “Course I was. We're—”  
“Griffith?” Charlotte's voice comes from the door, trembling and unsure, worried and relieved.

Guts steps back, away from the armchair, at the voice, he turns towards the door where Charlotte stands in her long flowing gown.  
“Uh, he's alright, kid,” he says before turning to face Griffith again. “She called me, I told ya.”  
“Thank you, Guts.” He stares at Guts' eyes until Guts looks away, forcefully.  
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Guts,” Charlotte says.  
Griffith laughs. Guts does too. And even Charlotte lets out a small, nervous chuckle. The tension diffused to a standstill.

Guts isn't always easy to read. Sometimes it's all there on his face, on the tilt of his head, the tone of his voice. Sometimes there's nothing easily identifiable. When he says “I should get going,” Griffith can't tell what he's thinking.  
“You don't need to,” he whispers softly, hears Charlotte clear her throat.  
“Better if I do. Glad yer okay,” he says, not turning around on his way out the door.  
“Are you really okay?” Charlotte asks him, watching him as he watches the closed door through which Guts disappeared.  
“I am,” he looks at her with a smile. “Was just a cold, felt terrible, weak. I'm perfectly now.”  
“You could've called.”  
“I'm sorry I didn't.”  
“I didn't know what to do so I spoke to him.”  
“I know, it's fine. I'm glad you did.”  
“I didn't know he had your key.”  
“He lives close by.”  
“That make sense.”  
“It does... It does.”  
She sits at the arm of the chair, leans into him but flinches when he leans away.  
“Charlotte...”  
“Yes?”  
“I need to talk to you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
The line rings twice before Guts picks up.  
“Hello, stranger,” Griffith says. It sounds even more rehearsed than he thought it would.  
“Oh, hey. Been a while, huh? Yer doin' okay?”  
“I'd like to—Is there someone there with you?”  
Over the phone he can hear Guts clear his throat, and the clinking of dishes, maybe glasses, silverware.  
“Casca?”  
“Yeah, she's here.”  
“Sorry to interrupt. Can we meet? I need to—I want to talk to you.”  
“Eh, sure. Now?”  
“Tomorrow, at the Gaston Cafe. Ten?”  
“Okay fer me but, don't ya have work?”  
“I'll explain tomorrow. You'll be there?”  
“Yeah.”

They both hang onto their receivers for quite a while before hanging up. He hopes that's a good sign.

 

The cafe isn't as busy at ten. Office workers stop by for their breakfast before eight and the midday crowd doesn't start showing up until around eleven. Aside from him, there's a couple old people with newspapers taking up their entire table, cups of coffee being refilled without their notice almost.

Guts comes in and despite appearances, none of the old people seem to take note of the tall gruff man who barely manages not to topple over a chair when he finally zeroes in on Griffith, sitting at the corner next to the window.

“Hey, what's up?”  
“You're mad at me.”  
“Huh? Why do y—”  
“The things I said, to Charlotte. You heard us, over the phone.”  
“That was—that was months ago.”  
“We stopped talking after that.”  
“It's what ya wanted, yeah?”  
“I quit my job,” Griffith stirs the coffee inside his mug with the tiny spoon, watches the whirlpools of beige clouds swirling. “You asked me if I had work, I quit. I was there because of Charlotte's family so they were going to fire me anyway. The university too, I'm no longer...”  
“What do you mean?”  
“It's over.”

He can feel Guts watching him, his fingers holding the spoon, his hand on the table, the way his hair falls over, but he doesn't look at him.

“I never wanted this, you know? It wasn't in my plans. It's hard to change the circumstances of your birth, in this world. You gotta make use of whatever there is, so I did. But I never thought I'd meet you. I never thought I'd be willing to give it all up, for you. That I'd find something I wanted more.”  
“I don't understand—”  
“I don't want to be your friend, watch you with Casca, have you watch me with Charlotte. So I cut ties with everything that'd make that... a possibility.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Somehow I started thinking about all the things I could achieve and accomplish with Charlotte by my side. Somehow... I knew none of them were you. None of them mattered as much to me. I want to be with you.”  
“W—me?”

He nods. He wants to reach out, brush his fingers against Guts' cheek, swipe them over his confused frown, slide them across his pursed, chapped lips. But he doesn't move, just holds his stare, eyes fixed on Guts'.

Guts is the one to reach out, across the table. Gently, he cups Griffith's cheek, even more delicate than he'd imagined.  
“Are—are you sure?”  
He nods into Guts' hand.  
“Are you?”  
“Hell, I—” he smiles, indulgent, the way he'd do giving in to a child's whim. And maybe he is.  
His laughter is clear, like summer rain, when Griffith pouts, just a bit.  
“You better be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont take this too srsly bc it's a literal romcom, based on doris day + rock hudson's 1959 hit 'pillow talk'  
> i say this but its still eternally long so idk  
> happy holidays n i wish y'all a good comin year

**Author's Note:**

> lots of different aus none of them finished none of them good  
> some for hika  
> i can't decide which punctuation to use bear with me


End file.
